Withering Rose
by TheCinnamonTiger
Summary: an alternate goodbye to Rose Tyler


But it had been years.

Years and years and years. Decades, at least. How old was she now? Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? She honestly couldn't remember. She found birthdays were very hard to keep track of anymore. She just knew that every time she looked in the mirror, expecting to see the same blonde haired nineteen year old that had run away so long ago, she saw an old woman, with wrinkles around her eyes and lips. Her skin was much thinner than it used to be and she fell more. And she couldn't run nearly as fast as she used to.

But that didn't seem to matter. Because he still took her hand. He still ran with her and never even considered leaving her behind.

But it was so unfair. Because he still looked as young as the day he regenerated.

His hair was still thick and brown, sticking off his head in the strangest of ways at times. He was still as bouncy and energetic as ever, and his voice was still so rich and full of life. The only thing that brought her any amount of comfort was his eyes. Those chocolate eyes with thousands of galaxies and millions of stories swirling endlessly around inside. Those eyes looked older than hers ever would.

And they had had years together. Years of racing across the stars, fingers entangled in each other's. Years of him telling her stories of dancing planets and broken galaxies, and her head resting against his chest and listening to the steady rhythm of his double hearts. Years of laughing and crying together, always falling back into each other's arms when things got too horrible. Years of finding her in the library, asleep with a book in her hands, and years of finding him talking quietly to the TARDIS console when he thought she wasn't around.

But as the years wore on, she was found asleep in the library more often. And she wasn't moving as quickly and she complained about aches and pains in her bones that hadn't been there before. And she would complain about his face looking so young while she was stuck with this.

And she started to find him in her room, sitting on the ground, knees brought up to his chest, staring straight ahead.

And his smiles started to get softer. Just barely. It was almost unnoticeable. She would complain about her greying hair and he would just run his fingers through it, planting a gentle kiss on the top of her head.

She fell asleep in his arms more than she used to. And he would sing to her - something that sounded ancient and beautiful - fingers tracing softly up and down her back.

He had seen it coming. He watched it happen right before his eyes. But that didn't make it any less painful.

Because one day she didn't get up.

She must have been nearly eighty by now. And it had been going to happen sooner or later. He had gotten so much time with her, and he was thankful for that. But that didn't mean he was ready for this.

He wasn't ready to peek his head into her room and find her, laying peacefully in her bed, lips parted slightly and eyes closed.

He wasn't ready to slowly approach her bedside, kneeling down next to her, quietly saying her name. And when she didn't respond he wasn't ready to gently feel for a pulse in her wrist.

He wasn't ready to find nothing.

And his eyes grew wide and he was shaking his head, the only word leaving his lips being no. And then he was screaming. Begging. Shaking her body in an effort to bring her back. And he was holding her, rocking back and forth, shoulders shaking as his body was racked with broken sobs.

He wasn't ready to bring her body back to Jackie and Mickey. He wasn't ready to see their expressions.

He wasn't ready to hear Mickey screaming at him that he could have saved her, and why did he keep her away for so long?

He wasn't ready for Jackie's sobs and howling emptiness. He wasn't ready to tell her that he had been simply too selfish to bring Rose back before she had reached this point. And Jackie, still fairly young, was seeing her daughter, old and gone in the Time Lord's arms.

He wasn't ready to attend the funeral, standing off to the side, face dark as he did his absolute best to swallow back the lump of heartbreak in his throat.

He wasn't ready to walk slowly back into the TARDIS and toss his trench coat over the oddly shaped pillar, alone. He wasn't ready to walk up to the console and then collapse in front of it, shaking and sobbing.

He wasn't ready for the sleepless nights that followed, and the dreams that came with what little sleep he did get. The dreams where he could still hear her voice and feel her hair between his fingers.

He wasn't ready to park the TARDIS in the cemetery and walk to her grave, kneeling down in front of her headstone, reading her name over and over and over again. The date read that she had only lived for twenty years.

And he would kneel there for hours, whispering stories both old and new, with a desperate, impossible hope that she could somehow hear him. That maybe she wasn't as far away as she felt. That maybe she was still watching her Time Lord whisper her name to himself over and over again.

That maybe he hadn't lost the only girl that had ran away with him and then unknowingly stole both his hearts.

Because even he couldn't save her from this.


End file.
